The use of sensors in the healthcare sector is mainly driven by the increasing need for sophistication in medical electronics to “sense” and “monitor” temperatures, pressures, chemical, and biological levels of patients and drugs for applications in diagnostics, therapeutics, monitoring, drug discovery and delivery; in hospitals and other medical facilities, including home-treatments. Sensors play an important role in enhancing safety and improving the quality of life in the healthcare arena. Sensors are increasingly being used in medical applications due to accuracy, intelligence, capability, reliability, small size, and low power consumption of sensors. Sensors increase the intelligence of the life supporting implants. They can also be used in various types of monitoring appliances to provide better quality of life for the patients. Sensors enable early detection of ailments, thereby allowing a timely prevention or cure. Moreover, sensors may be used for detection of environmental hazards and chemical agents. Most existing liquid crystal detection measure changes in optical features, such as refractive indices. However, the examination of these changes is time consuming, expensive, and requires specialized equipment.
Therefore there at least remains a need in the art for a lightweight, portable, cost-effective liquid crystal biosensor for identifying a target biological agent(s) and methods of operating thereof.